Irene de la TorreEmerging translator Dutch into Spanish

‘You could say that I learned Dutch by accident. During the second year of my degree I won an Erasmus scholarship, which allowed me to study abroad in Ghent. It wasn’t until I was admitted in Ghent that I realised they speak Flemish over there.’

Irene de la Torre (1988) was born in Madrid. Soon afterwards her family moved to Mallorca, where she grew up and where she gained fluency in Catalan. After she studied Economics at the University of the Balearic Islands, she followed her passions and moved to Granada to study Translation and Interpreting, specializing in English and French. When she began her Erasmus grant in Ghent, Belgium, she started studying Dutch day and night and fell in love with the language and with Belgian culture. Since February 2014 she has been a full-time freelance translator based in Madrid, translating many kinds of documents.

Irene de la Torre lists the languages she speaks, ‘Dutch, English, French, Catalan, Spanish,’ and then pauses. ‘I’m afraid I love to learn.’ Born in Spain, she works as a freelance translator of both literary and commercial texts. She specialises in translations from the Dutch. ‘You could say that I learned Dutch by accident. During the second year of my degree I won an Erasmus scholarship, which allowed me to study abroad. My first choice was England, followed by Sweden and Ghent. I thought Ghent was in the Walloon part of Belgium. I thought it was French-speaking, and that appealed to me. It wasn’t until I was admitted in Ghent that I realised they speak Flemish over there.’

Selected translations

Translator from Dutch, English, French and Catalan into Spanish

Proofreader of: translations from Dutch, English, French and Catalan into Spanish, and Spanish texts